Xbox One Reputation system explained

If you're an intentional griefer or troll, you'll soon know exactly how it feels to play against your kind. Microsoft is looking to round-up all you like-minded griefers and lock you away in an alternate version of Xbox LIVE — just a giant cesspool of bad-mouthed, racist, ignorant trolls.

Okay, so that's not exactly how Microsoft's senior product manager Mike Lavin put it, but the company is looking to offer a Reputation system on the Xbox One that will encourage good behavior.

"There are industry best practices we've looked at, about giving kudos and props to people who behave well. We've learned from everything we've seen, and we're trying to take it to the next level. So there'll be very good things that happen to people that just play their games and are good participants. And you'll start to see some effects if you continue to play bad or, or harass other people en masse. You'll probably end up starting to play more with other people that are more similar to you," Lavin explained to OXM.

The system won't be susceptible to exploitation either, as Lavin assured "there is no way at all that a conglomerate of people can conspire to sink your Reputation on the system.

"The way that it's built fundamentally stops that. It's very much over a period of time – if we see consistently that people, for instance, don't like playing with you, that you're consistently blocked, that you're the subject of enforcement actions because you're sending naked pictures of yourself to people that don't want naked pictures of you… Blatant things like that have the ability to quickly reduce your Reputation score."

Lavin likened the system to Xbox Achievements. "You want your Reputation score as high as you can get it," he said. "It will be as fully visible as Gamerscore in your profile, so it's taking an as-important role."

As for how the system will work with parties of friends, Lavin clarified that the party's overall Rep score will be that of the player with the lowest Reputation. So you best have some well-behaved friends on your list, or you might just find yourself in the hellish pits of Xbox LIVE. As Lavin points out though, "Some people might like to play with people that are similar to them."

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